Cardiac and neurological interventions are frequently supported by fluoroscopic imaging devices whilst a catheter is introduced into a patient's body by medical personnel. The device is progressed through a suitable feeder artery to a diseased or lesioned site.
Progression of the device is monitored by the radiologist on a screen. On said screen the fluoroscopic images are displayed which are acquired by an x-ray projection imager throughout the intervention. In a cardio context, it is the coronary vessels that are of interest where the lesion, for example a stenosis, is located. The vessels themselves are normally barely, if at all, visible in the fluoroscopic images because of the vessel's low radiation opacity. To still provide the radiologist with a navigational aid, road mapping techniques are used. A road map is a graphic that represents in projection view the outlines of an anatomic structure such as the vessel through which the catheter is made to progress. The road map is usually shown alongside the current fluoro to provide the desired navigational clue. A single road map in general does not cover the whole region of the coronaries through which the catheter travels. According to past solutions, a number of localized road maps have been stitched together into a composite road map to thereby provide the visual navigation aid.
US 2010/049038 describes a cardiac roadmapping procedure.